Predator vs Wizard
by ReconstructWriter
Summary: A centuries-old alien hunter, prowler of a dozen worlds to stalk the most challenging prey, sets her sights once more on earth. Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, gets a new case. May the best predator win. Edited.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I apologize to all my readers; a few months after posting this, I realized I had written in a bad cliché to avoid wrenching hearts a little more. Hopefully I've fixed that and any other problems you guys brought up this second time around. This chapter and the last chapter have been most heavily changed, but I went through all of them to make sure everything was consistent and polished.

 **Chapter 1: Death**

It's darkest before the dawn. The eleventh hour. The most foreboding of times when dark lords rise, devil worshipers work their rites and virgins are sacrificed to the appetites of evil gods.

My phone rang.

I jerked awake; a few sparks falling from finger-tips, singing sheets before my conscious mind realized the jangling old-fashioned dialing phone meant no harm. Right; evil-doers do not give courtesy calls to their victims—unless they need the victim conveniently positioned in front of a window. Any would-be sniper was out of luck, my windows didn't give assassins such a courtesy view. The phone jangled again. Probably SI.

At o' dark thirty I grappled with sleep as my hand did the same with the receiver, the smooth plastic of the antique phone almost slipped from my grip.

"Murph?" I mumbled.

"Dresden." The not-Murph's voice jerked me out of nostalgia. Right. Murphy hadn't worked at Special Investigations since she'd followed a suicidal wizard into a genocidal battle against Red Court Vampires. This wasn't Stallings either, now in charge of the police department who thanklessly tangled with the supernatural.

"Connie from SI," said unfamiliar voice. "We need your help."

Why hadn't Stallings called? Was this a trap? Or was he in trouble?

"Where?" My voice was comprehensible. Sleep had been conquered.

"Near Buttercup Park. Meet us there."

I grunted. For those with double X's, it translates to 'on my way.' Martian is a much easier language so early in the morning. Then I rolled out of a bed my legs didn't hang from—will wonders never cease—and got ready for a trap.

Until a few months ago my roommates could reliably take care of themselves—slob though my brother was—or deal with a few hours alone like Mouse and Mister. These days I had a different kind of live-in resident: one who could not take care of herself or be left alone for hours.

Using every bit of stealth mastered over years of stalking horrors of the night—or slinking away—I crept across cold hardwood flooring and peeked into Maggie's bedroom. A head of dark hair peeked out from behind the bulk of my saber-toothed dog, Mouse, who lay between her and the door. My soul gained another size at the sight. "Thanks boy," I whispered and with equal care closed my daughter's bedroom door and slipped away to dial a number.

Babysitter confirmed I geared up.

A heist on the vault of Hades—god of death and wealth, king of the underworld. _That_ Hades—had paid off in millions. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop but it was more than enough for a townhouse of fireproof stone and brick crammed in a decent neighborhood for kids.

My new wizard's lab was already cluttered with second-hand wooden shelves sagging beneath the weight of new ingredients. Half a dozen projects were crammed between four different work tables and I had to root through tools and trappings to pluck out my new shield-bracelet. I hadn't bothered with any fancy, time-consuming upgrades just yet; any focus was better than no focus. I slipped on the chain of shields, a twin for my old one and snatched another project from a far table. This one wasn't quite finished but would have to do.

Investing in armor is a wise idea for the wiseass. Leather was my go-to material with its metaphysical connection to protection. My old leather duster, a gift from Susan, was also all I had.

Silk has a similar connection. Not as universal as leather but silkworms spun it into cocoons to protect them just like armor, strengthening the association. The white-silk body-suit made me the world's most conspicuous ninja with runes stitched in gold, platinum and silver thread. The precious metals would make enchantments last for years. The cloth was also thin and pale enough to wear beneath any clothing and protected me from the neck down.

Over the suit went an old shirt and pants too bloodstained to wear to my daughter's school. I shrugged on Molly's gift to me, a new leather coat, relaxing a little beneath its weight and magical protections. I also added one other thing I'd occasionally needed over the years, but had dragged my feet getting.

When Michael met me at the door I tipped the brim of my hat to him in thanks, tossed aside a breakfast bar wrapper and, staff in hand, left at a jog for the nearest Way.

If Chicago traffic is deadly, the roads through the Never-Never made the Walking Dead look like the teletubbies. Every ancient monster Greek heroes fought, the Norse wrote their bloodiest ballads about and the Native Americans warned against dwelt within its haunted wilderness. Lions, tigers and bears would be snacks to the horrors dwelling within a forest so ancient and wild it swallowed bulldozers. Opening the Way cut the breath from me. Mild early summer air froze from brutal Winter's breath, cold enough to freeze a drop of blood before it hit the ground. My shield was raised, my staff ready to fight and my icy expression daring something to try.

Something obliged me.

Only by Listening did I catch the slightest, muffled crunch of snow smashed by a swift paw. Mab's unique physical therapy paid off. I raised my magical shield facing the giant monster in time for its massive, shaggy body to collide, sending us both to the ground.

Laying beneath a predator was a fatal mistake. Before my back hit the frozen ground I tucked and rolled. Momentum shifted the monster off and I got to my feet ready to fight. The monster rose to its paws just as swiftly and I got my first good look at the attacker.

Someone had taken a sabertoothed tiger, decided it wasn't nearly large or vicious enough, bred it with saber-toothed lion and added spines. An ice-age liger crouched for another pounce. The creature's thick pelt was festooned with spines, a lion-like mane, a bear-like build, fangs long enough to double as swords and muscles bulging thicker than my whole body.

I stood my ground, gathering my magic.

It hesitated.

Predatory instincts have a very powerful, automatic reaction to fleeing prey: chase it. When prey doesn't flee, it stops feeling like prey.

I drew in heat like a volcano about to blow. Didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't blink from the stare of this primordial predator from an icy era long dead on Earth. Heat baked my brain like a mid-summer heat wave in the asphalt jungle. Waves of Death Valley heat cut through the chilly air and the snow beneath my feet melted so fast it turned to fog.

Coiling muscles slackened, flattened ears perked warily as though picking up the sound of a cobra's hiss. A broad nose twitched at the whiff of the idea that hunting this small mammal might hurt. Even supernatural predators don't like getting injured. But one other instinct could drive it to gamble.

Hunger.

Not the hunger of missing a single meal, or two, or three. The hunger of missing a meal in a world without food. The hunger of never eating again, of dragging oneself the world over while hunger devoured you from the inside out and dying without a morsel to be found. Of breathing a last breath after weeks of toil as your stomach digested the last of your organs.

The creature pounced, calling my bluff.

It met a hose of fire, bright golden with heat and powerful enough to bore through fur, skin and flesh. The creature's silent pounce turned into an inhuman scream of agony as it flopped to the ground. Nearby, all the trees I'd drawn warmth from exploded as liquid sap froze and expanded in a split-second. Slivers of wood shot everywhere, bouncing off my duster, cutting into my face and shooting into the rolling, writhing beast in the snow. It fled despite its wounds. Once it was out of sight and hearing I took the path again. A few more steps I remembered to release the breath and tension I was holding. My shaky steps afterward were from the cold. I swear.

"Halt traveler!"

The tone was the bubbly-wet sound of someone drowning in their own blood…or a Former. Automatically I readied staff and shield, stopping at the river-bank. In the middle of the icy waters, beside a bridge I tactically avoided, rose a mermaid designed with a catfish theme. Top half mostly human, bottom half mostly fish. In one webbed, clawed hand she held a trident devoid of any runes, gemstones or other supernatural graffiti. It was tipped with five very sharp prongs. In the other she bore a shield, likewise un-graffitied and likewise shield-ly. Strange tentacle-barbules drooped around her face like a grotesque beard and mustache, water sliding down them and over a pair of very generous breasts covered in golden-sheened scales. The combination of overtly feminine and masculine was weirder than an androgynous person walking into the office and trying to guess the right pronoun. Too dark, too wide eyes surveyed me with fury and wary suspicion.

"Guardian of this river, I mean you and those you protect no harm." Hey, I could do diplomacy.

"Regardless, to cross you must pay the toll or else cross weapons with me."

I frowned, "What is the toll?"

For a toothless mouth she sure gave an intimidating smile. "Blood."

So much for diplomacy. Blood can be used to kill the previous owner, power ritualistic sacrifices or be put to less merciful purposes. Forking a drop over was straight out. Crossing the bridge didn't seem wise either. Fairy tales have some truth in them, including all the ones about monsters beneath bridges. Crossing the guardian's creek was straight-up suicide, wizard or no. Freezing it was my (or the winter mantle's) first idea but if water broke the ice I'd be just as damned. Clearing the river in a single bound wasn't possible; fairy power didn't make me superman and the river guardian had better control over her home terrain than me.

Shrewd observations like that were what made me such an in-demand detective.

I focused on the ground, combining it with my favorite element. Magma bubbled from the river and rose into a miniature volcanic island barely large enough for one person to stand on. Fire and earth—if my guess was right—were two elements fishy kitty couldn't control. She charged me with a screech like a broken flute underwater. Once more I reached for heat in the middle of Winter. Magma froze to stone a second before a battering ram of fire jetted from my staff toward the guardian. She retaliated with a wave of water.

Elements clashed. Fog burst into the air, clouding the river and its banks as fire and water collided but I was already leaping to the island. Another bound and my feet slammed deep into cold, slick mud. Fully human, the cold would have deadened my limbs and I would have slid into the waters of the enraged guardian. With the winter mantle boosting a couple years of parkour training, I wrenched my feet free and heaved myself up. A stab of prongs hit my back like someone had thrust a training sword in my spine but the guardian's wood couldn't pierce the spell-enchanted coat, let alone my new ninja suit. Didn't bother sticking around. In the Never-Never loitering, speeding and all other traffic violations have the same punishment: dismemberment by predators.

Fifty paces away from the river I opened a Way over a felled tree and stepped off a dumpster in a Chicago back alley a block from the crime scene.

Death hit me.

Tangible in its stench; insatiable in its fresh horror, the metaphysical impression slammed into my metaphysical senses like a full load from a skunk in the face. Normally I'm an insensitive wizard—comes with the Y chromosome—and lucky to do more than sense a practitioner before shaking their hand. This scene though, someone had died here. They'd died horribly. Violently. Fear stained the scene like blood.

So did fortitude.

This had been a messy death but whoever died had stood their ground and tried giving the Reaper a two-for-one deal. Failed, but fought the dying of the light. I had to fight down the breakfast bar I'd eaten earlier. The scent of blood hung sharp and metallic in the air. A lot of blood. More than a kill. Had someone done a ritual with it?

I shouldered past the distinct reek of exposed organs and offal, toward the dark shape of a person leaning against an old police-car. Indistinct in the darkness, I could still clearly see sleek black dreads piled in a bun reflected in the streetlight and the hand in her pocket. She wasn't happy to see me. With an inch or two on Murphy, I still towered over her and her hand twitched around a gun.

"Guess you really are a wizard, thanks for making it so quick," Connie squinted in the pre-dawn light. "You okay?" she motioned to my face.

"Morning commute." She didn't ask and I stepped toward the scent of blood, disembowelment and death.

Prey.

That was my first thought in my head after clapping eyes on the remains of the poor former police officer. My second thought was a desperate plea for an obliviate. Something had skinned the cop, leaving everything that should stay on the inside brutally exposed. A knob of windpipe hung free at the neck, along with a thin piece of skin and scalp. A human face without the skull. My stomach staged an escape but got caught in my throat. A deep gash ran along the back of the bonelessly-flopping carcass. Someone—probably something—had also taken the spine. Guts, meat and limb-bones hung off the tree-branch like the remains of a poacher's kill: discarded, unimportant, non-trophy bits.

A speck of blood, cold from death, landed on my nose like a drop of rain.

Two decades ago a similarly gory scene had up-ended my stomach. Since then my guts hardened until the sight of that man hung like a fresh killed buck didn't require a bucket.

Though it burned my heart.

Humanity clashed with rising Winter Knight instincts like I'd clashed with the water guardian. The scent of blood and fresh meat coaxed terrible hunger and bloodlust from winter. I fought down the reaction and mentally grappled with the ancient mantle, woven from magic in the time of the Neanderthal. It struck back with fierce cold but my will was fueled with all the emotion turning my heart to molten metal. The mantle gave a last roar before humanity tightened the leash. Taming it.

For now.

Imagine suddenly having a second personality added to your own, the personality of a pedophile. _That_ was the disgust rippling through me.

"Who."

Connie carefully held out a part of a blood-stained badge. Most of the name was still visible. Those black letters burned every hope I'd had of Stallings being okay. The tempting and repulsive body was all that was left of Murphy's former partner.

"I'm in charge now," Connie whispered despairingly. Her eyes looked shiny.

I needed the bucket.

After thoroughly ruining my image as a tough, hard-bitten PI and wizard, I straightened and accepted the bottle of water Connie held out to me. "What happened?" I asked once I could no longer taste my last meal.

"Finishing up a regular patrol, nothing out of ordinary. He was just reporting in, I was parking the damn car. Got what happened on tape…not that it helps much." As she withdrew the machine I took a couple cautious steps back. These days I could kill one of the new tablets at fifty meters, though the recorder was surprisingly old-fashioned. "Less likely to break around the magical—friend or foe," she said. Her face fell, "Stallings idea."

My heart churned with nausea. "I will stop this thing."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, wizard." A click of a button and the recorder issued a deep, carrying voice requesting assistance. I concentrated my entire being until nothing but myself and sound existed: Listening.

"BITN protocol. Something strange is following—" A body hit the ground heavily, followed swiftly by a gunshot. Then another, then another. A savage snarl interrupted and was answered by a soft curse and bullets. Stallings was making this thing work for it.

He was going to die and all I could do was Listen for clues, any hints of his killer's identity.

More gunshots, sharp and flat, a little louder than the usual police-issue nine millimeter. An inhuman cry of pain. Quick footsteps with the quiet depth of a large predator stalking. More scuffling and twisting, the sharper, louder crack of bone breaking. A human sound; quick, final, soft as a short breeze. An exhalation.

A voice spoke in an alien language, a short sentence followed by a sharp whine and a shot. Not a gunshot or arrow or spell or any other projectile I'd ever blocked over the years but the sound of something discharging. Then footsteps, heavier with confidence of a predator in its kill.

Connie shut off the tape.

"That's the end?" I asked, "He…died?"

"Yeah. It was quick at least. First shot. The rest of the recording was…" Connie swallowed, "All the sounds of," She waved a hand at the body, " _That_ happening."

I didn't need my gruesome nightmares to come with a side order of sound-effects. "Right. I'll need to look at the scene of the crime undisturbed." Meeting her eyes as closely as a wizard could, I added more gently, "You need to warn every other cop about this. And not get killed. Stallings…he was taken as a trophy. If we don't stop this thing, he won't be the last."

Connie swallowed something down again but credit where credit was due, her first action was to get on the radio, passing my warning on.

Buttercup Park was a picturesque little thing with a child's playground surrounded by neatly-trimmed trees, bordered by houses Michael probably built. The last place one would look for a gristly murder. Now the grass was tainted liberally with Stallings blood. I turned away from the carcass, toward the scene of the murder rather than the butchering and crouched near a hole bored in asphalt. Hardly a drop of blood had fallen here. One shot. Fire and heat concentrated enough to sear through rock.

That was how he died.

Metal glinted beneath streetlights. Bullet-casings. A few spots of something glowing green stood out in the pre-dawn darkness. I scooped up a sample of the sci-fi blood and muttered a tracking spell just before the sun rose.

The first rays of light washed over the deathly scene, purifying the terror and rage.

Not a drop of blood vanished.

* * *

Dah'Mei crouched atop another tree branch, the best-hidden hunter on the planet, polishing her trophy absently and analyzing the investigators. These hunter-humans tended to appear at the scene of a kill in recent years. Wait long enough and better prey often revealed themselves.

One of their number had given her a good hunt. It had escaped the triangle of dots before Dah'Mei could pull the trigger, a feat most humans didn't have the head or reflexes for. Her side still stung from two bullets, testimony to the human's swiftness and aim. This one would be honored in story many times over when she returned home.

Suddenly her attention zeroed in on another human. This one joined the cop, though he was not of them; his clothes were all wrong—browns and grays and blacks instead of blues. Yet he was even more worthy of the description hunter-human. In all her centuries of experience, Dah'Mei had never seen quarry stalk so predatorily, as though transcending its prey nature and embracing the nurturing of a true hunter.

A pale face turned to the trees, scanning with sharp, raptorous eyes. She crouched perfectly still, hidden within the canopy of this rare foliage in a stone and steel jungle, hidden further with the camouflage patterned armor and netting to break up her outline. From such a distance, no human eyes could spot her. With cloaking activated, completely still, she was invisible.

Yet his eyes paused a moment, meeting hers across the distance.

A shiver ran up her spine. Instinct told her this human would be one of _those_ hunts. A hunt of the century. A hunt one not only bragged about among fellow Yautja for a lifetime, but cherished in her heart. This prey was going to change her as a hunter; challenge her; transform her into a better one.

Yautja do not smile in the ordinary way but her features shifted with ecstatic glee. Had any human witnessed such an expression on the terrifyingly alien face, they would have fainted. The brown one followed her trail, passing beneath her on his way back to his den.

As silently as a shadow flowing over rock, Dah'Mei followed.

* * *

 **A/N:** I edited this because in the original I had made an OC, Connie, for the sole purpose of killing her off. That's lazy writing. Especially since I didn't develop her as a character before doing the killing. Stallings being the murder victim is much harsher because he's not just a dead body but a person we and the other characters know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Predator**

Stallings's killer—Stars and Stones he shouldn't have a killer—threw me a curveball. The being hadn't shown signs of mortal magic: no murphyonic aura with modern technology, no black taint of death magic, no trace of spells. Even old-fashioned mechanics will experience technical difficulties if someone fires a spell near it. Any magic capable of murder would slaughter the surrounding electronics. Yet the incriminating tape had survived.

And the glowing blood hadn't turned to ectoplasm; ruling out many types of immortals.

Which left untold legions of beings I hadn't the pleasure or damned luck to run into yet. An insane Wendigo maybe, but those things wouldn't have left…the meat. One of the other kinds of vampire courts I hadn't declared war on yet? A minor hunting deity? But why go after an ordinary human police officer? Nothing I could think of made sense. Which meant this thing was probably something I had never heard of.

That hunted people like trophy animals.

Again, sickness threatened my stomach. I'd seen death and horror visited on hundreds of people; sometimes from my spells or weapons. But Stallings. We hadn't been as close as Murphy had been, between war and Warden duties and my death and resurrection and Winter Knight duties. But he was still a friend. And I'd been caught up in my own magical problems.

A mistake that cost Stallings his life.

Stop. I took a deep breath, counting backwards from ten until I was calm enough to start being logical. "Anger won't help Stallings. Re-decorating the buildings with fire won't help Stallings. Arson is wrong and will only mean more work for SI." The flames, figuratively and literally, died down. This predator—one with neither normal mortal magic, nor common immortal magic—needed to be stopped; I needed to keep my head and think. It's glowing, green, inhuman blood resisted the dawn's cleansing. Something which hunted like a human down to taking a trophy and clearly wasn't one. A complete unknown, entirely unfamiliar.

But one capable of a decent veil as it followed me from Buttercup Park.

Give me some credit. I spent five _years_ with an apprentice who could do a better veil at fifteen. A little tutoring and Molly could hide three humans from the supernatural senses of a Black Court Vampire. You think she never used her favorite spell to sneak past me? Or wait in ambush with water-balloons? Or in one truly epic near-disaster, potions.

Whoever stalked me couldn't vanish like Paris Hilton's morals, though they were clearly beyond my current efforts. Good enough to murder Stallings. Movement alone gave the hunter away, making the veil ripple like the edges of a mirage with every leap. By Listening I could hear the slightest sound of metal scraping stone as they bounded from building to building. The footsteps were even; no exertion scrambling over the concrete jungle to keep up with me in the unusual heat of the day. Aside from these faintest of sounds, the ripple of concealment, my stalker didn't exist.

Mysterious predatory beings were the last things any rational wizard wants to deal with. Rationality isn't an accusation most level at me but, experienced warden or not, I'd rather be enjoying breakfast with Maggie at the Carpenters. Except it had killed a friend and made this whole cat-and-mouse game personal. The Winter Knight mantle and my own darkness softly chanted _vengeance_. Not without some hefty backup. Heading home with its veritable fortress of wards would be my normal modus operandi but my daughter was still there. Hell would go through an ice age before I lead any of my enemies to my daughter.

I kept heading north, away from my home, toward another fortress with powerful wards. An island I claimed as sanctum years ago. A prison built by Merlin himself to lock away all those evil immortal beings who should be punished eternally.

The hunter climbed trees and buildings with inhuman ease, keeping with my pace even as I broke into a fast jog. Long legs, height and practice means very few people could keep up with me on the ground. Early pedestrians jerked out of my way with shock, annoyance and a little fear—guess they don't see too many big men in leather coats jogging in this heat. The stalker didn't fall back, not during the traffic cross, not a half-mile further. It had to move faster, pronouncing the outline distortions and giving me a good idea of its size and shape.

Big. As large as me, at least. Humanoid but arboreal, a born climber. A predatory Orangutan.

As Tao of Pratchett has taught us, Orangutans are not to be made fun of.

I slowed down to a quick, easy walk to keep from dying in the heat. The sun had barely risen and sweat already made my armor clingy, but I didn't dare take it off. The charred hole deep in asphalt and a headless corpse flashed through my mind. My stalker slowed; their even footsteps barely changing. Not an enemy I could beat in a footrace then. Inhuman eyes made the hairs on the back of my neck lift warily.

Buildings made way for docks and ships like a lake-going Wal-Mart. Chicago's wharf. Safety. I would get to Demonreach and then…then the monster would regret laying eyes on SI's leader.

The skin on the center of my spine, between my shoulder blades, prickled. I'd been shot there once before by a sniper. Only by Listening did the faintest click come to my ears. The sound of a weapon being sighted.

I wasn't going to make it to the island.

One knee hit the ground, a blast of white-hot plasma tore through the space my spine occupied a second ago, brushing over my shoulder. Molten light scorched stubble and the skin beneath less than an inch from my pounding pulse.

Too close.

Time to do the last thing prey ever does to a predator. Will gathered, I turned to face the hunter, raising my staff as I got up. Hoping my guess was on the mark, I launched the easiest, fastest spell a wizard could.

"Hexas."

Mortal magical practitioners are the anti-tech and I'm one of the worst. A cough from me can kill a computer at fifty meters. When I'm trying? The wharf blackened out. Tech within half a mile in all directions fell silent with final shrieks of agony. In the distance where my spell had been aimed building lights died in a line stretching the length of the city. In the cloud-blackened morning the only light to be had were three red dots fixated unwaveringly on my chest.

Oh shit.

* * *

Dah'Mei chuckled. So the humans had invented some way of disrupting technology, at least their primitive technology. Of course such things wouldn't work on Yautja tech. Foolish human. The hunt would be over soon then. She felt a twinge of disappointment, but pulled the trigger without hesitation.

In the breath of time the laser took to reach her prey, it dodged.

Dah'Mei had hunted human soldiers. Athletes. Martial artists and knights. She targeted only the best of the most physically fit across hundreds of cultures and hundreds of years. More than the finest human scientist, she knew just how swift and powerful a human could be. Knew the limits of adrenaline-fueled strength and reflexes better than they.

This human was faster. Searing laser-fire should have punched a hole through his ribs and one lung instead of brushing the leather of his dark coat. No material tore away from heat capable of melting through stone and metal alike. Unnatural. New armor technology too? He jabbed his staff toward her and snarled a word.

"Fuego!"

The word meant nothing but a lance of fire, blue with heat, shot from the staff toward her chest. Fire like that of a laser canon, hundreds of years more advanced than any technology these primitive apes could claim. But the staff was supposed to launch EMP's? Dah'Mei felt as dizzy as when she'd first been introduced to the wonderful invention of fire-arms.

Then instinct, which remembered the shocking, deep flash of pain from the first bullet overtook her and she moved. The heat brushed by her own throat as it passed, searing half her canon off her shoulder. The useless, half-molten slag fell to the ground.

No ordinary fire could melt through predator-forged canons. A new weapon. Why hadn't the other human used one of these strange fire staffs? No time to contemplate; the human fired again. She dodged the second shot completely, a spear of ice so cold its passing left frost on her armor and a chill against protected flesh. Fascinating. She would have to examine the versatile weapon after prying it from her prey's cold, dead paws. She fired back, forcing the human on the defensive, to act as prey.

It dodged behind some primitive human ship but she could see it's legs and lined up her next shot. The trio of red dots wouldn't give her away this time.

She pulled the trigger.

The human's legs collapsed.

Then it sprang over the wheeled ship in a single bound, slashing its staff like a spear in mid-air with another shouted word. Dah'Mei warily dodged, escaping the weapon's unnatural blow.

Or so she thought.

Force as powerful as the heat of a hunting laser, concentrated across a centimeter-thick space slammed into her helmet, just above the eye-sockets. Metal capable of withstanding gunshots crumpled beneath power unlike any human weapon she had ever encountered. It tore into her helmet, but the Yautja-forged metal stopped the force from cleaving the whole thing off. Her head snapped back from the blow. Her body followed and she had to flip over in mid-air to keep from slamming to the ground in a vulnerable heap.

She landed on her feet as lightly as any cat. The human stared at her with calculating eyes, hand going to his pocket. Dah'Mei had to temper the electric thrill in her veins. The drug of challenge. Two wrist blades snapped into being with an unfamiliar click, the very newest and best technology.

The human drew a gun in response. A disappointingly familiar weapon, though larger and heavier than what normal humans carried. His reflexes were a hair faster than she was used to dodging and the bullets fired—larger, heavier—plowed deeper into her unarmored side. She closed the distance, wrist blades flashing.

He whipped the staff toward her head, forcing her to duck, caught the end in his other hand and thrust the tip at her chest with another unknown word. She caught the wood against her gauntlet, the energy channeled within it reverberating into her flesh as the blow shot beneath her arm-pit where no armor protected tender flesh. Another step brought her blades slashing into exposed skin. He roared but did not falter, slamming the butt of his staff against her foot, thrusting the head into her chin and wrenching the whole thing to the side, tangling it in her arms. Dah'Mei took a step closer, stealing his leverage before he could flip her. This was an intimate dance with prey; a fatal one. No human was as strong as a Yautja. She wrestled him to the ground.

Or tried to.

Teeth gritted, tendons tight as bowstrings, muscles bulged like immobile iron against her strength. Blood dripped down his face like sweat, mingling with salt-water, tracing his brows, threatening the corner of his burning eyes. Dark eyes that bored into hers like twin plasma shots.

He didn't move.

How? Average Yautja were larger and stronger than all but the most massive and physically gifted humans and she was large and strong even for a Predator. This human was her equal in height and weight but he couldn't be in strength. No human was. Dah'Mei redoubled her force.

Little by little his joints bowed but every inch was a strain for her own muscles. She shifted her stance and grip, trying to crush his knees to concrete and heaved the full of her bodily strength and weight against him. Suddenly the human dropped to the ground so swiftly Dah'Mei faltered. A second's stumble. He twisted his staff and the Yautja had to turn a mid-air flip to keep from being smashed to the ground herself. Landing neatly, she used the momentum and power of legs, hips and shoulders to slash her wrist-blades from his ribs to his shoulder.

The force of the blow staggered him but the coat didn't give way. Did the humans have such incredible armor to repel Yautja blades now?

"Fuego!" This fire was less a spear and more a wave, bathing her in a tsunami of flame. Powerful muscles spurred her away in a leap few predators could have matched. Pure heat washed over the armor encasing her feet. He followed up swiftly with a spear but she anticipated the move and evaded an icy shaft large enough to tear out her heart. Rising, she aimed her canon.

"Forzare!"

Another wave of strange force shot out but this time Dah'Mei dodged and the wave of power ripped a boat away from its dock and into the water. He was panting slightly, the unnatural attacks draining him and slowing his reactions.

Dah'Mei almost didn't fire, not out of weakness or sympathy but because she wanted most desperately for the hunt to continue. No human had lasted so long against her in centuries; the thrill made adrenaline sing in her veins as it hadn't sang for decades. But granting mercy was a disgrace to such worthy prey. If he couldn't evade in time, so be it. She pulled the trigger.

"Defendarius!" He spoke with instinctive swiftness. A wall of strange energy appeared—

—Bouncing the laser back toward her.

The angle was wrong for the deadly beam to skewer her chest. That alone saved her life. Her abused helmet took most of the blast; the laser-fire tore through the remaining crumpled metal. Useless. Blood dripped hot from a too-close shave. She tore the obscuring scrap away.

Unlike most humans, this prey did not reel back in horror at the sight of her true face. He hardly blinked. That blank-faced reaction was… perversely stimulating. She shook such thoughts away. Not even with this human who stared at her true face so fearlessly, who attacked her first, who wielded weapons almost equal to her own and fought her nearly to a stand-still.

Dah'Mei had little reason to learn any of earth's many languages, given how swiftly their languages changed but she knew a few words. And now she used them.

"Your name worthy one." She had to have it. This prey could not simply be the human, indistinguishable from so many thousands of others, not when she regaled the story of his glory or her triumph.

"Dresden," he growled.

"Dres-den," she repeated.

"And the name of the man you murdered was Stallings. Pyrofuego!"

Dah'Mei had to leap a good thirty feet and even then heat washed over her side from the fury of his fire. She did not know or care what most of his chatter meant but his name in Yautja language sounded like 'Victorious blade.' A fitting name for a terrifying prey. With another bound she closed the distance and stabbed her blade at the sliver of chest unprotected by leather. It sliced through fuzzy fabric, and stopped. Again. He snatched her wrist, clasping it to his chest and twisted.

She was jerked forward, wrist held in an iron grip, bones unable to withstand the sudden, wrenching force tearing her in two different directions. They gave way with a muffled, sickening crack before she was flung to unforgiving concrete. Dah'Mei ignored the pain with centuries of experience. Rolling into a crouch she fired another blast from her remaining canon, sending him reeling back, the leather armor once more protecting him. She needed to trap him somehow. If only she could land a proper hit on his unarmored head.

She would have to mar that beautiful skull. A pity. But sacrifices must be made and this was a sacrifice for the ultimate trophy. She cloaked herself. Dark eyes followed her but the technology masked her subtle activation of spear and canon. Dropping the cloak, she aimed. The sight of her weapons, primed and ready, inches from him, took him by surprise. This time he was a moment too slow. "Fueg—"

She slashed. He bowed his head, trying to shield it with another piece of leather but her strike rent true. Blood burst. The blow carved his face from the top of the dome down to his jaw, scarring beautiful bone. Her activated canon fired with a whine of energy. So close, so badly hurt, blinded by his own blood, he was too slow. Dresden still raised a hand, a strange chain dangling around his wrist. "Defen—"

Laser-blast tore through the chain, releasing a wild explosion of energy and searing his wrist, before hitting his stomach next to the strange dark leather-armor. Laser and unnatural energy sent her prey flying. He halted in a gangly, tangled knot of limbs on the concrete, blood sprayed in wild arcs to leave a glistening red trail to his unmoving body. One bloodless hand clenched the stave in a deathly grip.

Or did he die?

She approached him warily and primed her canon for another shot, just in case. A trio of red dots centered on his back. "You are truly worthy prey Dres-den."

A second round should have finished him off. Instead he shot off the ground like a startled feline, her finishing fire missing his back by millimeters. On his knees, Victory Blade pointed his staff toward her, another strange word on his lips. Dah'Mei was dodging before she realized he wasn't targeting her.

Blood, smeared on the ground, dripping off his face and oozing from a dozen wounds rose in an odd, foggy mist. Dah'Mei flattened herself to the ground to escape the worst of it. The world turned white. Without her helmet, she had only her ordinary senses and the fog blocked her sight. The stench of burning flesh and smoke kept her from scenting him. She could hear nothing but the distant wailing alarms of lesser hunter-humans closing in.

Her helmet might have been destroyed, along with a dozen sensors capable of picking up any living being in pitch blackness or beneath cloaking, but one did not rise to greatness among the Yautja by leaning on a crutch. She focused carefully on her hearing, taking soft breaths and shutting out distractions until she could pick out footsteps, oddly muffled and distorted ones.

Dres-den whispered another strange word, weariness thick in his voice.

No time for a planned shot. Dres-den's weapons, his unnatural shield, his abilities were foreign to her and she hadn't a clue how he'd turned blood to _fog_ , but the habits of prey were familiar. He was going to escape using the mist as cover and distraction. Retreat to his den. With her hearing amplified to the highest, she picked up the sound of something tearing, not cloth or metal or anything that should be torn. Harsh wind blew from nowhere, chilling the vapor with winter's icy breath.

No, she would not lose this one! Aiming the canon on sound alone, she had no time to focus, no time to steady herself. She could only hope all her training and experience would pay off. Could only hope she didn't hit armor.

She fired. The laser shot into the haze at Dres-den's head-height.

Distorted footsteps stopped. Something hit the ground so hard the thud made her ears cringe.

The fog died.

* * *

 **A/N:** If Dresden could short out all Yautja tech with a single spell this would be one really short fight, so that's not going to happen. Why is Dah'Mei's tech so resistant? Well Predator technology is as alien as the beings who made it, so it doesn't run like ours does. Magic can't shut down any more easily than it can short out a sword or a rock. Also, as one of my readers has pointed out, the Yautja have never heard of magic, let alone it's anti-tech properties. Magic is affected by belief and the lack of belief keeps magic from affecting the technology.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Again thanks to everyone who reviewed, followed and favorited. I went through everyone's reviews before editing this a second time to fix mistakes and keep the facts straight. I'm not sorry for the cliff-hanger. Honest. Hope everyone enjoys the next installment :D

 **Chapter 3: Fight**

Blood ran down my face, stinging my eyes and freezing the instant Winter touched it. Pain sensors blared klaxon alarms through my nerves; adrenaline smothered them and fear urged me on. Faster. Cold sunk like a knife through my skin, frosted my face and froze my breath. My heart shivered. That thing had taken everything I could dish out and kept hunting. If I'd stayed there I would have died.

Again.

I rolled out of my fall and bolted through the Never-Never like a junkie on the best drugs, muscles and magic twitching like I'd broken the mile-run record.

Bad idea.

I'd left my steak-coat and neon sign back home but loud footsteps—the sound-dampening spell collapsed once I opened the Way—the smell of blood and the sight of something running drew every nearby predator to me.

I came out on the Winter side. There was nothing but predators.

But they weren't creatures who used technology my magical murphyonic aura couldn't destroy—my hexas hadn't even made an error message flash on those canons. Impossible technological resistance from something I should have broke breathing on was alien. As in, 'call area 51, we've got an escapee'. One with superior strength, speed and technology; those laser canons, despite their heat, chilled me. I'd added an extra layer of spell-enchanted leather inside the coat all around my torso and enchanted every layer of leather until each one could turn armor-piercing sniper rounds into tokens. Beneath that was my ninja armor, which could do the same to ordinary bullets.

I was still feeling each shot from lasers capable of frying asphalt like butter. A dulled, numb sensation covered by adrenaline and chilling winter power flared. I had no idea how much pain I was ignoring; how bad my injuries really were.

A dire wolf burst from frozen foliage like a Loup Garou's bigger, nastier brother, fangs bared and claws extended. Without stopping I turned my staff on it, waited until it drew into point blank range, and shot an arrow of fire at the beast, drilling it through the lower jaw. The monster flopped over, only for three more to take its place, the scent of blood and cooked flesh drawing them like Mac's beer during happy hour.

Running was a bad idea, staying was a worse one. The wolves kept their distance, content to wear me down so I tapped into my reserves of strength and set a wave of fire. Nothing powerful enough to kill but three furry coats lit up. My core temperature dropped a couple of degrees. The ice-age canines dropped back, smothering their burning ears and tender noses in banks of snow.

Flinging fire around in mid-winter wasn't the smartest idea. My go-to element was taxing to cast in an environment where everything was frozen solid. The best source of heat was in my own body. Should have gone with ice but the predators probably would have shaken that off.

My boot slammed on the back of the first wolverine-otter and I only had enough time to register the squishy, soft feel of the ground before it struck. Swift as a snake it sank bone-breaking teeth into my calf. I stumbled, turned and stabbed the creature into the ground with my staff. A breathless "Gravitus" bored a hole right through the body. The other wolverine-otter—body built for swimming, claws and muzzle built for maiming and the size of both mustelids put together—tracked me with hungry eyes.

I used ice as a make-shift cast and half-ran, half-stumbled until I could do neither. Until I ran out of ground.

A steep bank lead to a river, the only flowing water in this icy wasteland. The second wolverine-otter caught up to me. In the center, eyes burning with rage, skin burned just as badly, was the river guardian I'd cooked earlier.

Her short, stubby, sand-paper teeth were bared with righteous fury. "No more leniency for you Winter Knight. I shall take your blood when I spill it from your corpse!" She raised the trident and bellowed a spell with ear-ringing volume.

Given the sheer number of evil wizards, beings and creatures I'd ticked off over the years, I could have indexed their threats. Faerie Queens, Gods, fallen angels and their psychopathic multi-millennia hosts, the Merlin, Outsiders etc. Compared to such a daunting list a simple river guardian's threat shouldn't have made me tremble in my boots.

It didn't. That was the cold.

I flipped the wolverine-otter from the bank with my staff and at the guardian. Her spell transformed the raging current of her home-waters into a giant, all-encompassing tsunami, solely aimed at one Harry Dresden.

I took back everything bad I ever said about water magic.

A river charged me. Primal instincts kicked into overdrive. Baring my teeth, ice growing over my fangs from a will not my own, I forget about any spells. No way was this puny fish going to get the best—.

No.

Reflexively I put a stopper on the Winter Knight mantle. Not enough time for chants, speaking out loud or doing math in my head. I had to keep it cool by sheer will alone while a wave of water powerful enough to drown an entire building came crashing down. It was like hauling against the leash of a dire wolf on ice but as the first drops of water pierced me, freezing cold, logic was in control. Letting the water surround me, I cast my spell. The bad thing about using fire in Winter territory was how little surrounding heat there was to draw from.

This water was liquid. It has heat to give.

The wave froze solid instantly; the heat snatched from it threatening to melt my eyeballs. I held the energy for a second, just long enough to tighten my hold on the mantle before raising my staff for a counter-spell.

Seeing through solid ice was like looking through a car window after driving over Mount Everest. The guardian was an indistinct mass of shadow on the other side. Any single blast of fire I aimed was likely to miss or wound only flesh. Instead, using every scrap of will and concentration possible, I went for the machine-gun effect: spray and pray.

"Pyrofuego!"

A hail of fire arrows shot as though from a dozen archers, each one gold with heat. They punched molten holes through the ice and into the guardian. I crouched, peeping through the lowest hole while taking a breather to get a better hold on the mantle. Ice dripped off my teeth and fingers. More ice shattered as the guardian attacked it with all the frustration she felt for me.

"You're in pain." Crunch. "Cold and freaked out." Crash, crack. "You're defaulting to fight or flight." I reigned in the rest of the Winter Mantle. Cracks appeared around my peephole. I backed off. She would get a fight but a fight with a wizard not a slobbering beast like Slade.

The river guardian thrust her trident through the hole my eye had hovered beside three seconds ago. The point hit enchanted silk.

I set her trident on fire.

With my control over fire I can turn up the heat, the difference between a blowtorch and a bonfire. Her trident was enchanted and built of hard, dense wood, not a splinter along the length. Until heat cracked it. The weapon blistered with burning shards as I overloaded the shaft with heat. The smell of burning slime and scale scorched my nose.

She slashed at me with a flaming stick.

But she made a mistake and once again I did the unexpected thing for a wizard. I dropped my staff, the thing with which I worked my magic, lunged forward, grabbed her trident over-top her clamped, smoldering hands and twisted.

Already so close to the bank, our combined physical power wrenched her from the water and sent her flying over dry, frozen land. With the fiery trident now in hand, I struck at her fish body and pinned her to the bank where a fire-arrow had gone right through. She screamed bloody murder. Or burned murder at least.

I snatched up my staff, froze myself an island in the middle of the churning waters and bounded across.

* * *

I staggered out of the Way with dried blood, new cuts, fresh blood and a burning desire for my old beetle, broke down or not. Give me Chicago traffic any day. The one saving grace of the Never Never was the impossibility of tracking someone through it. Unless this alien could open a Way, they'd lost me in a city of over two million humans. Not even I stood out that much.

My daughter bolted out the undisturbed door of our pristine house, her bright smile fading at the sight of me. Probably because of the blood. Or the limp. "Daddy?"

A ripple of mirage rose from asphalt of the nearby road. It was just hot enough I wouldn't have noticed if not for paranoia.

Like a nightmare the predator rose, unveiled itself and pounced. Straight toward my daughter.

Parental instincts are some of the strongest on the planet. There are stories of housecats fighting five foot rattlesnakes, eagles attacking military drones and helicopters, of prey fighting predator to the death to protect young. Humans require more parental care than any other baby. Over a decade. Our parental instincts, forged in the ice age when our children were food for every big bad wolf and sabertoothed tiger out there are more powerful still. Mine were bolstered by the supernatural bloodlust from a winter goddess.

This thing was after my baby.

Logic died like a candle beneath Niagara Falls. Pain vanished. My tunnel vision focused on the predator with the intensity of a sniper rifle. My inner caveman roared to smash my daughter's threat until it. Stopped. _Twitching_.

I didn't remember drawing on the Winter Mantle. Don't remember thousands of millennia of bloodlust hitting me with enough adrenaline to toss a truck aside. I charged the creature like a wolverine, leaping over Maggie and slamming icy claws into the monstrosity who dared attack my daughter. My Maggie. The chant of the Winter Mantle was indistinguishable from my own primordial parental rage. My lips were curled back, baring every single tooth.

When I issued my challenge, it was not with words but the voice of a lion. The roar erupting from my throat was a deeper, darker, more terrible sound than the war cry issued from Gard's bloodless lips against the Grendelkin.

I was blind. Blind as any animal fighting to the death for its young. Blind as I tore through flesh, slammed the predator to the ground hard enough to crack asphalt and raised an ice-clawed hand to rend it to harmless little pieces.

A focused blast flung me bodily into the ground and sense back into my head. Think. Or your daughter dies. Battle-rage condensed like fire into solar plasma as human intelligence poked through. "Arctis." Manipulating the spell into an icy helmet wasn't easy and it cost me when the predator took the distraction to thrust two blades toward my belly. Dodging, I pulled out my gun again. Even drawing on the winter mantle, I'd feel exhaustion sooner or later just using magic.

Those blades could slice right through ordinary metal and demonstrated this with supernatural speed. My only mortal weapon fell in two pieces. The second strike slid off my duster.

I tore into its vulnerable throat. How dare it make me prey! I was the predator here! I would hunt it. I would kill it. My claws scored four lines across its windpipe. Circling the retreating creature, I struck again, cutting into bone. Fully drawing on the Winter Mantle, I was the stronger one, the faster predator.

Whatever else this alien thing was, it wasn't a warrior. The 'armor' it had was little more than plates necessary to mount weapons, a helmet and metal around its limbs. The rest of its clothing was mesh to break up outline and keep it from depending on the veil. Some of its chest was torn apart, leaking strange glowing blood.

"Infriga!" Fresh, warm blood turned to brittle, icy shards, tearing more flesh in its chest. My strikes clawed deeper, ripping out more muscle, spilling more blood. The predator fought back but not fast enough. Snatching the outstretched wrist like a whip I clasped it in an iron grip. Like the Frost Giants from the new Thor movie, I ripped heat out of the warm flesh beneath my hands. The effects were far more brutal in reality. Crystallized flesh cracked and splintered, skin, flesh, blood and bone bristling with ice crystals. I wrenched the limb in a spiral-break Murphy had taught me, shattering it.

The alien let out a shrill hiss as its whole forearm broke like glass. A frozen hand dangled by a strand of brittle tendon. Ice must have numbed the pain but for the first time, when I looked at the alien, its body language betrayed a familiar emotion.

Fear.

Fear of me.

My mouth stretched wider.

Good.

It dared invade my city; it dared stalk my home; it dared murder my friend. It dared Threaten My Daughter! My Maggie whom I would burn the world to save! I was going to rip its still-beating heart out with my bare hands.

* * *

Dah'Mei did not have time to identify the emotion gripping her heart with a chilly, leaden hand. This was not 'prey fever' the jitters which came from a hunt with especially worthy prey. This was far worse, far more powerful. But this emotion stirred within her limbs the speed and reflexes necessary to survive.

Victory Blade thought she was a threat to his child. Even the softest and meekest creatures could turn savage when their young were threatened and Victory Blade no trembling hare. Gripped in the worst of wrathful fury, he was nothing less than a monster, heedless of any blows she landed on him. No words, should she find those capable of explaining the abhorrence Yautja felt about harming the young, could calm him. He was deaf to any sound from her throat. In his incandescent fury, he was terrible and beautiful.

Parental fury gave him greater power. Where before she was the faster, he now made her jabs and slashes look slow and clumsy. Where before pitting strength against strength had been futile for him, now the contest was a death sentence for her. She activated her last working shoulder-cannon and aimed at his vulnerable face. He bowed his head. The blow slammed into his helmet again and sent him reeling back, giving her enough time to get to her feet.

"Maggie! Come here!" A second human, this one obviously favoring one leg, hobbled toward the child, reaching with both hands. Instantly Dres-den was between her and his…family? Both these grown humans smelled male and what was her Victory Blade doing with such a weak mate?

He charged. His choice in mate mattered not; he was more than enough to compensate. She brought her blades up a second before he could tear her throat open but he pinned her, pressing her own blades to her throat with his greater strength. This close she could see his eyes, so dark brown they were nearly black and colder than the frozen depths of space.

"Daddy!"

Dah'Mei was close enough to see the switch. Glacial rage thawed. Trembling with exertion, he whispered, "Fact: Maggie needs you."

The Predator didn't care what strange words he spoke. She freed one hand. He jerked back but finally he was a moment too slow; her wrist-blade slashed his throat. He clasped a hand around the wound as rich, red life-blood poured from it.

"Harry!"

"Fact," he rasped again, hand at his throat, "I'm gonna die if I keep this up."

He transformed from predator to guardian, darting between her and his family once more as a canine herded them away. Experience told her to pounce and take the opportunity before he retreated. Instinct made her wrist blades twitch. He was escaping.

For once she beat instinct down. The canine, as though reading her thoughts, had come back out the door, watching her steadily. A powerful beast. At Dres-den's command the spilled blood rose in another dense fog. If Victory Blade could still speak enough for this strange attack he would not die in his burrow from a throat-wound. Lamed he might have been but so was she and fog was not something to follow such powerful prey in, especially when he had back-up. One shoulder canon was gone. Her helmet was gone. Her forearm dangled by a hair of sinew and cold bit deep into her chest, slowing the pulse of life. Continuing the hunt now would see them both dead. No, better go back to her ship, get another helmet, repair as much of her arm as possible or replace it with a prosthetic, then hunt him down once more.

So as he retreated, Dah'Mei did the same. She would prepare and come back to this hunt better equipped, away from the security of his den and his fragile mate and child who might be harmed in such a confrontation. With less than her normal swiftness, Dah'Mei ran back toward her ship, the unnamed emotion forgotten as excitement ran through her veins once more. This would be the greatest hunt of any Yautja of her generation or ten generations before or after. She would dine well the rest of her life on this story.

But first a medical kit, the entire front side of her body was blistering and peeling and freezing all at once. Then she would plan this hunt better. Starting with a way to lure Dres-den from his den.

* * *

Wrangling the full strength of the Winter Mantle down in the middle of a battle was worse than fighting a demon-possessed monster in an icy labyrinth, but the fact-stating thing helped. My daughter's cries helped even more. As much as I wanted—not needed, never needed—this kill, she came first. Michael came first. Saving people came before the kill. Always. I'd learned that fatal lesson years ago and one poor woman had died for my wrath.

Never again.

The predator retreated too. I could have probably killed it. Mouse would protect my friends and family. I still had my staff. With the Winter Mantle in hand I could finish this—

"Daddy?"

—by sacrificing my own life.

"I'm here sweetie," I turned around and she shrank from the sight of me. My heart spazmed with sudden pain and I crouched down at eye-level with her. "It's gonna be okay."

Maggie was looking doubtfully at my face. She depended on me. I couldn't just die. Besides, this hunter was solely focused on me. It probably wouldn't harm anyone else until it strung me up like a trophy buck. Smart money said it was doing the same thing I was: healing up for another confrontation, one where it would be better informed and better prepared.

Mouse nudged Maggie away, back to the safety of the house. Michael placed a soothing hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, I'll take care of him," then limped toward me with an offer of support. I needed it. With the Winter Mantle drained out of my limbs like adrenaline I could feel every gash, ache and throb. My body felt like it had taken three shielded sniper-rounds without the dopamine of another concussion. Propped up by Michael, I raised the wards. Mouse slammed the door and bolted it with a bar capable of blocking a demonic charge.

Yes, it had been tested.

Lifting the wards had taken the last out of me. I didn't feel as bone-tired as I had in the Deeps, or after the night of the necromancers but cartilage-tired at least. Only deep, jolting flashes of pain kept me awake.

"Harry?" Michael asked softly.

Keeping my eyes tightly shut, breaths heaving, I whispered, "Just a minute." The last thing I needed was to look at him while the winter mantle's insidious thoughts insisted Michael was weak, crippled prey.

That brought up the bile I hadn't thrown up after Stallings. "Fact: Michael is my friend."

The former knight retreated to the kitchen and a moment later the house was flooded with a floral scent—which only made me nostalgic for the rich smell of coffee. The recommended calming tea would have to do. Adding caffeine to the Winter Mantle wasn't a smart decision. So soothing 'wish it was tasteless' tea. I got up, or made the valiant attempt to get my feet beneath me until something slammed a hot poker into my calf. My leg collapsed. Maybe I could lay here a while and drink tea later.

"You two okay?" I asked from the floor.

"We're fine. It hardly had time to do more than look at us and Mouse was there," Michael said from the kitchen. "I would suggest medical attention before seeing Maggie again. It would not soothe her fears to see you covered in blood."

Stars and stones how bad was I?

Between the two of us we peeled off all my armor. Beneath I looked, and felt, like a bruise. Deep, purple-black blotches covered me every place the laser had slammed into me. Two ribs were cracked and every breath felt like living embers burned in my lungs. My spine felt like it should be broken. It wasn't. An actual broken spine wouldn't leave me in this much pain. The guardian's trident had punched a hole in my skin, leaving the silk unmarred but bursting through my flesh. My face was the bloody mess. Those blades had cut me to the bone.

Michael flipped my duster over. A smoldering hole had burned through three layers of enchanted leather. Without the armor each blow would have been lethal, ripping through my vital organs and out the other side like a bullet through jello.

The last gash must have nicked my carotid. Freezing the blood had kept the vital stuff inside but my throat and collar were stained red. Michael handed me a dish of warm water and a cloth. My reflection had a gaping wound from the top right side of my skull to the bottom left of my jaw. Sheer luck had saved my eyes but I still had to close one as the blood dripped down into it. Head wounds bleed like a stuck pig.

"Could you stitch—" I pointed to my face and neck. "I'll do everything else." Later.

"Of course." Michael wasn't as practiced at sewing as Charity, but with a little training he could probably do this professionally. Holding my face perfectly immobile, I pressed pads to other injuries. Last time I'd gotten anything this bad I'd nearly died.

Which wasn't as shocking a comparison for me.

Once Michael finished my Frankenstein makeover, and I finished the food and un-tasteless tea, I felt human enough to visit Maggie. Her room was lit by the glow of a Pinkie Pie night-light. The blankets pooled at her feet. A book was closed by the night-table: Paper-bag Princess.

She'd waited up on me.

"You came back?"

The uncertainty in that question pained me more than the predator. "Hey sweetie, I'm okay."

A dad's words should be second only to the gospel truth to a kid until they hit thirteen at least but Maggie looked at me with eyes that had already seen the death of one father.

"Look," I clasped her hand and drew my face closer. "Just a flesh wound. I'm not going away."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Really promise?" She stared with eyes going on forty-three.

I'd given Maggie some details on magic. She was too young for the whole soul-scarring truth but what she didn't know could hurt her. She knew not to say her full Name to anyone, how to check for shapeshifters, to make a fairy promise something thrice-fold and about promises on magic.

Though my words had been a cautionary tale. Promise something on your magic and breaking it would tear a piece of your power away. With the Winter Mantle, any oath I made would probably carry even more weight.

And this was my daughter.

"On my magic I promise, I will _always_ come back." A minor earthquake wracked my metaphysical strength, sealing my words in bonds stronger than iron. But if I broke them it would only be in death.

Her innocent smile was worth any pain. "Read the story now?"

I nodded and managed a passable rendition of all the voices; she dropped off about the same time the dragon had. With her head on my chest, dark hair splayed out, tears gone, I didn't want to move either. The book slipped from my hand.

Shaking off sleep, I tucked Maggie into bed and left her room. Rest would come soon; right now I needed my lab.

"Bob, wake up."

Time to keep my promise.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm not going to kill off the main character just yet ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Winter is coming.

 **Chapter 4: Hunt**

Dah'Mei jolted awake, pulse slamming blood and not-prey fever through her body. Something was wrong. She stayed silent and still, eyes shut as though asleep, ears cocked, nostrils flared. Her ship hummed and reverberated soothingly as the prey-monitors scanned continuously. A timer, keeping count of the days, clicked once. Not another sound could be heard, no footsteps of any prey large or small. Not a whine of an insect or footpad of a mouse. Engine fluid burned a little less cleanly keeping the necessary systems running while her ship was at rest; she would have to change it before leaving. The faintest stale stench of blood and her own body odor lingered, the last remains of air not yet filtered out by life-support during her thrilling last hunt.

No other sound, no other smell. No alarms blared, no monitors unexpectedly turned on. Opening her eyes, she was met with a domed ceiling and familiar blinking lights in the exact tempo and colors they were supposed to. Carefully she levered her body out of the firm cot.

Though stiff and sore from the most violent hunt she could remember—more so even than the sentient horned equine she'd confronted fifty years ago—her medi-tech had been up to the challenge. She flexed her hands equally painlessly, the nearly destroyed wrist perfectly functional once more. Medi-droids had turned her deep chest wounds to fine scars. Swiftly donning her armor, new cannons and a new helmet from the spare parts in storage, she relaxed into the familiar weight and comfort of technological-heightened senses. A hunter once more. Now to find out just who or what had foolishly disturbed her sleep. As befitting any centuries-old hunter, she trusted her instincts more than technology. Something was out there.

Passing her massive serpentine skull trophy, Dah'Mei activated an in-depth surroundings scan. Nothing, not even one of the tiny suicidal prey-pests of this planet or annoying, hovering parasites. Snapping her wrist-blades out, a spear in one hand, a gun tucked in her belt, she opened the door. A wave of pine scent hit her, along with the slightest hint of something else. There. To the left, laying on the carpet of brown needles was a scrap of cloth, stiff with dried blood. What was this? Had her prey passed by here unknowingly while she healed? Crouching, Dah'Mei studied the thin material.

Instinct alone saved her.

A tension gathered behind her, something beyond her senses but present like the breath of death against the back of her throat. The stare of a predator.

"Lucis." A whisper on the wind. She sprang aside.

A beam of concentrated light, like her own laser cannon, shot silently through the center mass where she'd been crouched. Dah'Mei dodged. Too slow. The beam caught part of her armor in its vaporizing ray. The piece of cloth lay undisturbed beneath. Bait. Daring not stay in the same place again, she zig-zagged, evading another blast of light and looked up.

At first she saw only her ship's nearly-invisible outline, a barely-there mirage due to cloaking. Before her disbelieving eyes a ripple appeared above it, as though a fellow Yautja crept toward her beneath their cloaking. The figure was about the right size and shape beneath the distortion but why in the universe had another of her own kind been so rude as to interrupt her hunt? Did they cloak themselves to hide their shameful face?

And why had a hunter _shot_ her?

The soft footsteps were unfamiliar, not Yautja at all. They halted. Another beam of light seared the top half of a cannon. A puzzle piece clicked in her head. She dodged faster, trying to fire accurately at a nigh-invisible enemy. Impossible as it should have been, Dah'Mei was not facing a fellow Yautja at all.

He was a Predator though.

Laser-fire glanced off the cloaked figure. As skillful as her evasions of his light-beams had been, Dres-den learned from his mistakes. His next attack formed no spear of fire but a rain of arrows, each so bright they hurt to stare into. One drew a line of scorching pain across the side of her throat. Another burrowed deep into her leg, through the muscle and bone itself. She collapsed to one knee, white-hot agony burning in the core of her leg.

When did humans know how to cloak?

His cloaking vanished.

Dried blood caught between black twine on a painfully-furrowed face. Yet no pain dulled the bright flames of fury within Victory Blade and he struck with the same unnatural swiftness as their last desperate battle. An arc of light threatened to cleave her in two like a spear-blade.

Disbelief nearly ended her. For the briefest of micro-seconds she was stupidly unable to comprehend being hunted. In all her centuries of experience she'd had humans occasionally try to track her down and shoot her with their silly weapons, as though she were a mere animal.

They hadn't _hunted_ her. Victory Blade stalked her beneath cloaking of his own. He fired blasts of light akin to a laser-cannon, was armored against her best weaponry and had somehow tracked her to _her_ den. Casually he stepped between her and the cloaked ship. This was perverse. It was wrong. Predator was not supposed to hunt predator. Prey was not supposed to hunt predator. Yautja was not supposed to be prey.

Threatening laser-fire forced her further away.

Victory Blade's movements were only a hair slower than they had been the last time, his fury slightly less arctic. The laser sheered muscle away from her side, carving a trench through flesh and cleaving her spear in two. Blood and molten metal splattered to the ground, her decapitated spear-head landed in the pine-needles. She cloaked herself and sprang over another force blow, but the wound told and another chunk of armor and flesh vanished. In the space of a breath he disappeared. Beneath cloaking, she could still see the heat he radiated.

Hopefully he could not see her in kind.

Cloaking veiled any weapons he had brought along. What did he wield against her? A staff and gun, as before; against her cannon he shot a golden laser. There had been more, she was certain.

"Forzare!"

An enormous hand, glowing with inner fire, grasped her in its massive claws. As it clenched the breath from her, Dah'Mei aimed her remaining cannon at the construct. Laser-fire tore at the creation until it released her, shreds of white-blue power fading. How was such a solid construct possible? Hard light technology?

"Assaultus!" A bar of force nearly tore her head off her body. No time to hypothesize. Dodging the force, she rolled to her feet and circled close, striking swiftly with her wrist-blades at his legs. The length of wood slammed into her forearms but she snatched his stave and twisted, intending to fling him to the side as he had her.

Dres-den released his grip, letting her momentum carry her off-balance. Swift as any predator he sank a blade in her chest. Netting fell away as steel gashed at her sternum, drawing a howl of agony. With the dagger buried deep, he placed his free hand on her chest and snarled a word, flinging her away with unknown power but keeping hold of the blade. The knife was torn free, flaps of flesh spilled blood down her torso.

"Ventas Cyclis!"

Invisible power wrenched his staff from her slackened grip and back into his.

Dah'Mei fired again but he dodged the laser, the burn barely scraping his cheek. His next strike shot for her torso. She dropped to her knees. The light carved a furrow through the top of her helmet; the pulse of heat where Dres-den stood flickered and died before her eyes. Not-prey fever infested her heart; she was hunting blind. His next blow tore her other cannon off.

No cannons. Hunting blind. What a battle this would be. What a hunt. What a story. But doubt crawled into Dah'Mei's mind. Only a single gun and her natural senses against the most difficult prey ever hunted? She could lose.

Heroics weren't worth her life.

Alone Victory Blade had nearly disarmed her completely. His staff moved with an audible whoosh for her torso and she had only her blades and a dying gun to counter. She crouched into a roll, barely avoiding the physical and metaphysical blow. He could win. She could die. No. Not with her ship right there. She had more equipment. Another set that he would not destroy so easily as this one. Springing to her feet, Dah'Mei sprinted for her ship.

Power gathered, just out of reach of her senses, heavy as the earth. She flung herself to the side in a desperate bound. If she could just get back home…

This time his voice came not in a whisper but like rolling thunder.

"Gravitas!"

Gravity vanished beneath her feet, turning her leap into a hovering flight for the briefest fraction of a second. Caught in mid-air like a fly in amber, Dah'Mei was unable to move her body an inch. Completely helpless against another strike. But she was not the intended target.

Gravity left her and the area as far as she could see—pine needles and branches and leaf-litter rising as though in space—and multiplied a million-fold beneath her faithful craft. A hammer-blow from God. Metal capable of withstanding the worst of the merciless vacuum of outer space and the harshest of lands crumpled beneath the onslaught of energy like aluminum foil beneath a fist. The open door flat lined, engines shattered, the entire ship and all its expensive, advanced technology screamed a last, high, deafening squeal. With one divine blow the hardiest technology she possessed was rendered into so much scrap metal. Her feet landed on the rim of a crater. Her former home.

A strange tremor shook her heart like that _spell_ had shaken the earth.

This. _Was_. **Legend**. Myth and rumor and whispered tales of disappeared hunters never again seen; a persistent fable of humans who were more than human. Who could do the extraordinary—wield the elements as weapons, vanish into the ether, call forth monstrous beings and raise the dead to their bidding.

Magic.

Like every experienced Yuatja who heard the tales of humans hurtling lightning or teleporting Dah'Mei had dismissed them as ravings. Tales of surprised hunters encountering some strange new human weapon. As she had with a gun. A few predators always vanished on Earth, adding tantalizing mystery to the allure to the planet.

She had hunted several humans who could have killed a young Yautja, or one who let arrogance overcome ability, but very rarely the experienced and powerful hunters also vanished. What could possibly have killed them, Dah'Mei had wondered?

She had her answer.

Limbs shook. Heart trembled. Her ship. Dah'Mei twisted away from another killing blow on mind-numbing instinct alone. The blow awoke part of her and she drew her gun—her last backup—and fired a storm of blazing light. She put everything she had into killing Victory Blade, damn the challenge of the hunt. The trophy. Anything. Had his child been there, she might have been desperate enough to threaten it and damn her honor. Home was gone.

She was going to die.

Victory Blade's shield broke beneath her onslaught but he barked "flammamurus!" The ground beneath her feet went from cool to scalding, from solid to boiling hot magma burning even more powerfully than his ball of fire.

Dah'Mei could not dodge a blow to the very ground beneath her feet. The instant she crouched to do so her legs sank into the molten rock. Magma seized her feet, grasped her ankles, melted the metal-clad boots but she managed the jump.

"Infriga Forzare!"

Boiling plasma turned to solid stone in mid-leap, freezing her in place. Dah'Mei fumbled for half a second, seized by two columns of rock, unbalanced yet unable to fall. Fear took over. True fear which does not fumble with the body like a puppet on strings but numbly controls a machine. The motions of Dres-den aiming some new weapon at her slowed. In the time it took him to line the weapon up to her heart, she pointed her laser-gun and fired: not at him but at the stone trapping her. Blinding light flared. Jagged pieces of rock rent the air. Dust enveloped their vision and she rolled away. His shot caught the shoulder-plate but didn't vaporize her frantic heart.

Fear spurred her on burning, bleeding feet, armor melted and half solidified into weights clinging to her naked, charred legs. Heat sloughed off the skin of her ankles to expose muscle, tendons, even bone but terror numbed the agony. Fear had snapped her awake despite not consciously sensing Victory Blade—what an appropriate name. Terror, dark and all-encompassing as a last shadow fell upon her. Her ship. Her only way home. All her weapons and armor and backups and supplies. Everything she had down to her trophies rendered to scrap metal with a single spell. He had prepared; he was coming after her.

She bolted into the wilderness, fear overcoming pain. The ship she'd lived in since earning it as a full hunter, her home through thousands of trophies killed, the most cunning of humans and numerous of hives was destroyed. No escape. Unless…other Yautja still visited earth to hunt, perhaps another stalked this world now. If she could find a fellow predator, somewhere on this planet, with only the technology on her back to assist her—

While Dres-Den hunted her down like the Great Hunter Itself.

Impractical. Flighty fear fled, leaving heavier, deathly dread to slow her footsteps. Dres-den would track her down and kill her as she had others. Victory Blade would truly have his victory. Dah'Mei felt great, empathetic respect for every prey who had turned to face her despite the inevitable. How had they found such strength?

"No," she hissed, straightening. "How am I to die? As prey…or predator?" Clawing away from the pit of despair, she sped up her pace, pushing through the pain and brambles. Right, then left, each step piecing together a winding trail through the thickening forest. She crossed paths with herself, doubled, tripled and quadrupled back on her own trail. If she was to die it would not be as a weakling. As prey collapsing before the predator. She would die a Yautja, hunting the last, greatest prey.

By the time her trail was finished she could feel nothing of her legs but if this trap worked she just might snatch victory from beneath the blade of death. A virtual web of tracks and blood led to a stream. Dah'Mei had used every trick she'd ever heard of to lose Victory Blade, but he would not give up. He would follow to the swift-moving stream. Gratefully she stumbled in; the cool water dulled her burns like healing serum and revitalized her with strength.

A foot sank heavily in mud. She wrenched it out, stumbling in deeper water. The cold, forceful current pulled with the inexorable strength of ceaseless liquid. Her toes barely brushed the bottom. Dragging herself through its icy grip, her feet touched mud once more. A tree loomed over the water nearby, leaves grazing the current. Her legs were so badly injured she barely managed to cling to the lowest branch. Hand over hand, she climbed higher through thick foliage. Another tree bent over the water on the side she'd left. Another jump. A leaf fell, green harshly stained with glowing blood for the current to sweep away.

Higher she crept until the view of her own trail was unimpaired, wind gently cooling her face. The stream was her best bet, it would slow Dres-den as he tried to figure out where she had crossed and its current would slow him as he swam. The canopy was thicker along either side of the water. She crouched in it, hidden by the tree, unmoving despite the pain in her chest and legs and the worrying lack of pain in her feet.

Summer's lush leaves and her own camouflage would probably work to hide her but just in case she activated her cloaking, then de-activated the triangulating lights on her laser-gun. Accurate shots without them were difficult, but red dots would grant Dres-den warning enough. She had centuries of practice shooting without any guiding lights; only the apprentices truly relied upon them.

The wait had never been more grueling for her, not even as a young hunter. Then, The Great Hunter had been a foreign, barely acknowledged concept; a thing which claimed only fools and ancient ones. The abstract, far-away notion grew more substantial, loomed closer and higher with every passing year. Only her equally rising skill allowed her to keep her courage.

Now the specter towered over her, so close she could feel the chill from its presence on the back of her neck even as she hunted death. If this trap failed…Dres-den would kill her. She would become but one more hunter inexplicably vanished upon this world, heightening its mystery.

Kill or die.

Her patience, forged and whetted by the stone of time frayed strand by strand from that same rock. Should she have made the trail so confusing? The only scent coming from the wind was pine and her own blood. What if he retreated once more and chose to come back another time? Not a ripple of cloaking gave away an approaching predator. No, he was a hunter. He thought he had her on the run. Nothing drew a hunter out like fleeing prey and she had given the illusion of such with her frantic, fluid-drenched trail.

A steady, light kush, kush, of dried pine needles caught her attention. Footsteps. Every muscle in her body awakened with energy. Victory Blade approached. Dah'Mei let out a silent breath of relief, her heart calming. Finally, death would decide. Silently she calibrated her gun, pointed toward the water so as not to alert well-honed instinct of her most dangerous prey.

Victory Blade paused at the edge of the stream, dark eyes intent on the water rather than the cover of the canopy. Did he think an ambush to come from below? No…he did not search for any sign of something lurking in the stream. Despite the trail leading—obviously to her experience—in the water and out the other side he did not take another step. Was water some form of weakness? Most humans did not hesitate to leap into water fleeing from her, no matter how it's currents frothed. Perhaps the stream somehow interfered with his strange powers?

Even better.

His attention snapped up, zeroing in on a break in the water. A rock. Upstream, not fifty feet from her. If he leapt on it, she would have an excellent shot. His coat and body were too heavily armored for a guaranteed kill but his face remained the least protected. He wore a helmet beneath the hat, icy armor made in haste but a shot through the eye would do it.

His ravaged face jerked to the canopy. Dah'Mei's heart froze but she did not allow herself to do the same, swaying slightly with the wind as a branch would, gun lowered, eyes averted lest he somehow feel the presence of her eyes. Mentally she chanted 'I am a tree, just a tree, just a bunch of leaves swaying lightly in the wind. Just a tree.' Too many times prey had detected her by some sixth sense and detection would kill her now.

Narrowed, dark eyes scrutinized the foliage. She didn't dare stare directly at him. Cold, trigger-guard steel bit into her fingers. If he saw her, she might not get the gun up in time. A bead of sweat formed on her forehead, stung every wound it flowed over, slowly rolled down the grooves of her face, over silent lips to hang suspended from her chin.

It fell.

He looked toward the rock. Her heart remembered to move. That's right, she thought. Come on Dres-den, take the leap. Just one more move. Her gun was ready and aimed for the spot, adjusted for a head shot two point two nine meters above the middle stone. Her finger rested on the trigger. One leap, one small jump, was needed. She would fire the instant his eye came into the iron sights.

Dres-den crouched. Dah'Mei's heart stopped. Gun aimed, trigger ready, she waited like a hawk perched on a wire.

He leapt. Further than any human athlete could he bore himself over the water. Both feet hit the rock with feline lightness. His heavy coat snapped forward like a vulture's wing-beat. Ripples scattered from the stone. Dah'Mei remembered to breathe. He straightened to his full, imposing height, face focused toward the bank.

Never had she wanted to fire as eagerly as she did now. End it, end it, end it. Her patience was tight as a garrote wire, only iron control kept her finger from squeezing that last, fatal millimeter. A predator always waits for the perfect shot. The only shot guaranteed to kill. The eye shot. Her heart drummed faster. His legs tensed. Her breath stopped. Would he take another jump, land on the other side where distance would make a kill-shot far more difficult? Her fingers twitched. If she didn't kill him with this one shot she was dead!

Despite the foliage and her cloaking, his eyes once more met hers across the distance.

Blood roared, a waterfall of noise in her ears. Bullets of sweat poured into her eyes but though it burned like acid her aim never trembled. Her heart beat so fast it stopped.

She fired.

The laser gave no red glow, no noise, no warning. Instant deathly light hit the face of Victory Blade, punching through the back of that gorgeous skull and spraying mud and water in the air as it ripped through the stream.

When the water settled and the mess cleared a second later, Dres-den lay still, skull an unrecognizable mess, body flung onto the far bank from the force of the shot.

Dead.

The hunt was over.

Relief felled Dah'Mei from the tree into a heap. Her gun slid from trembling hands. The bellow of blood died down until she could hear the gurgling river, the swish of pine-needles, her own mad mirth. Standing on shaky, barely-functioning legs, the Predator laughed loud and booming. Fear bled from her like some vicious disease. She'd done it. She'd won. Snatched victory from the jaws of death. Hunted what no other Yautja had succeeded in slaying. Scrambling for the gun, she stumbled to the stream on numb feet.

Or had she?

Suddenly wary she raised the gun and activated both wrist blades. Did he play dead? Had his cobbled-together helmet covered the eye somehow? Was this another magical trick? Keeping the river between them, she shot his face again. Laser-light tore apart more lovely skull-bone. Splinters flew, shining in the mid-morning sun before falling into the mud. Finding every sliver scattered throughout the stream and bank would be a new method of torture but the pain would be worth it. This trophy was worth it. Victory Blade was dead. She had survived the greatest hunt of her life.

Carefully, for he was the greatest and most terrible of prey, she crept through the water to the other side, extended a wrist blade and nudged the body.

Dres-den stayed still.

Her heart slowed. She lowered her gun. The last of her fear bled out and she stood straight and tall to claim her trophy. She had won.

"A good death," she whispered.

 _Crack_.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** I've changed a few things around here too. Thank you all again for all your reviews, favorites, follows and support. You've inspired me to write this story the best I can :D

 **Chapter 5: Kill**

My bullet slammed through the creature's bared head at the base of the spine, shooting out the nose with a spray of blood. The eyes widened in pain and shock, fixated on my flickering illusionary double.

I released my spells like dropping a pair of fifty-pound weights held by fingertips. Sound rushed back. Darkness evaporated. The last fragments of my corporal illusion vanished like blotches of light from concussed sight and the acme anvil factory in my skull went out of business. But there was no time to relax. Like Murphy says, with the supernatural there's no kill like overkill. Switching to fire I cleaved the alien in two. Not a nerve twitched as it fell in two halves beside the river bank. Finally the hunt was over. Stallings could rest in peace.

The winter mantle normally enjoyed peace as much as I enjoyed people-hunting aliens but when I pushed it away it left with tail and head low. Like a prehistoric wolfdog, content with the human as the alpha. Cold that had nothing to do with the retreating mantle crept in my bones. It hadn't felt like this since the last battle with the Red Court, maybe not even then.

Ow.

Without the winter mantle I could feel every exquisite layer of pain. Old wounds re-opened, spilling pain like fresh blood, the chest-deep ache of drained magic. Veils, illusions and sensory-warping spells might not require the sheer metaphysical might of a wave of magma or torrent of fire, but they weren't any less exhausting. Intensive yoga can be just as grueling as bench-pressing an ATV. Holding a veil, a tracking spell, a sound-warping ward and an illusion of myself was nearly as draining as crushing half a million vampires in the opening salvo to genocide on the Red Court.

The bullets I'd been sweating wouldn't have fit in my fifty-caliber revolver.

Six months ago it would have been impossible. Without soulfire the illusion would have been unimaginable. Despite the literal forces of creation at my beck and call, I'd required an actual focus to manipulate mystical forces delicately enough to create a copy of me capable of crossing a river.

I holstered my gun and pocketed my newest creation.

Stars and stones the Harry Potter references were going to be unbearable. My wand could have been a movie prop, except for the opal tip, delicate runes carved along the length and the ability to channel actual magic. Flimsy looking or not it had helped me hold several precision spells at once, which was like a football-player trying to stack a tower of cards while dancing ballet and playing a solo violin of Mozart's greatest compositions. Simultaneously.

Shaking myself awake, I pulled out one of those really old hand-held wireless radios. The thing was technologically ancient enough not to fry in a wizard's hand and came with its own protective rubber casing. I'd added iron plate metal because stuff tends to die on me even without the murphyonic aura.

"Connie, its Dresden. Found what killed Stallings."

"Tell me it's dead."

"It's dead. Do you want me to bring it over?"

"Left a body behind did it? Thought the magic types didn't do the corpse thing." Connie was getting good at this. Maybe she would survive.

"It's not magic, couldn't sense any magic from it. Hell's Bells I saw its space ship." Right before turning the thing into scrap metal. I should have cleaved it in half or blown out the engines. Kept the rest of the real live space ship salvageable but the price I paid for the metaphysical strength of the Hulk was his metaphysical delicacy.

Hopefully I hadn't smashed a light-saber in there.

"Alien…" I heard a loud thud over the radio. "Damn it the magic was freaky enough." She sighed the sigh of one who hears the first cracks of Avalanche Paperwork descending. "Haul it over here."

"Sure," I said, trying not to vocally reveal how much more of a pain it would be to haul the two halves of one alien carcass and my slightly fresher one to the Chicago PD.

"And I'll pay you for a report on it," she added reluctantly. "How you fought it and won. Jesus Christ. Got enough to deal with about the magic."

"Gotcha, I'll be over there ASAP."

"Meet me at the Way near Buttercup Park. And Dresden? Thanks."

Another grunt substituted 'you're welcome.' I hung up, grabbed both halves of the carcass, one over my shoulder and the other by the ankle, and opened a Way. My foot crushed the bloody snow near a corpse of some vegetarian before the meat lovers had overtaken it. Their faces, drenched to the eyeballs in gore, reminded me of Hyenas, though the bodies were built like saber-toothed cats. Several stopped eating, watching me pass with possessive stares.

I never stopped moving, never blinked at the smell of blood and offal. Never showed the slightest flicker of human horror or disgust or the smallest fragment of winter knight hunger. The predators didn't meet my eyes but the second my back was turned I heard footsteps. About-facing in a heartbeat, I shocked the predator so bad it teleported back to its meal.

A shadow engulfed the sun for a second and I looked into the hungry eyes of a vulture, one easily the size of a bush-plane. Such a bird hasn't been seen on earth since the Ice Age. A scavenger for the ancient mammoths and ground sloths; a creature that battled for carcass rights with giant bears and sabertooth tigers. Had it landed in front of me, it would have been eye-level with my chin.

Massive wings folded and two hundred pounds of raptor dove. Guess I was close enough to count.

Force and fire are my go-to elements and I've been branching out into earth and light but wind is an old favorite. Normally one of the other elements can get the job done more easily but against a bird there's no better element than wind. Those wings and feathers are as carefully balanced on currents and thermals as a gymnast on a balance beam.

I sent a gust to the primary feathers, enough to turn a perfectly controlled dive into a less-than-perfectly controlled tumble. It snapped its wings out instinctively; slowing its momentum and flapping heavily to regain height but even a realm where the laws of physics were guidelines, this creature couldn't get enough lift to keep itself in the air. It sailed away, slowly losing height as thermals abandoned it. I sped up my pace.

Which wasn't much with three hundred pounds of dead weight dragging me down. Just like Charity doesn't exercise by putting on full-plate armor and running up fifty flights of stairs, I don't exercise by hauling three hundred pounds on a hike through the forest.

I should probably remedy that.

Two thirty-seven, two thirty-eight, two thirty-nine. I opened a Way near an abandoned campfire ring with the subtle look of a pentagram and gratefully stumbled into the real world.

"Holy shit!"

Fire belched smoke in my face, stinging my eyes, clogging my nose and obscuring half a dozen teens gaping stupidly at the sudden appearance of a massive guy hauling an equally massive corpse. I stepped over the campfire, flames dying beneath the bite of winter. Survival klaxon alarms blaring in their heads, the group sprinted for the safety of their cars. Between the human blood and the alien blood they probably thought I was a monster and did the smart thing.

Could I rock the Splattercon! look or what?

One of their sticks, loaded with hotdogs, had fallen. I snatched it before the sputtering flames could eat it. Hey, no reason to waste decent food? I took a bite of half-burnt sausage.

Tofu. Was nothing sacred in this world?

After giving the local Bigfoot enthusiasts their wet dream, I opened another way, hiked ten paces in pitch black through something's forest-garden and stubbed my toe on the next Way marker. Another spell tore reality apart long and wide enough for me to zombie-shuffled into Buttercup Park. Night had fallen. How many hours did I lose? Or days?

One old red pickup truck, lights in good order despite enough dents, scratches and rust to do the old beetle proud, was parked near the crime scene. Connie leaned against it. I barely recognized her without the uniform, hair down long and loose and bundled up against the cold in a thick hoodie. She looked more like someone's kid sister. Dark eyes took a long look at me, glanced at the two halves of the creature I let drop and turned away to the truck door. She probably needed a hard surface for stress relief.

This fine, upstanding pinnacle of law-enforcement pulled out the food and drink of the gods—coffee and dounuts. White of frosting and sprinkles 'pon it.

Did everyone hear that damn story?

"You might want to wipe off your hands too," she handed me a couple paper towels.

"Thanks." I must look like a serial killer. Doing business with a cop or a young punk. No one interrupted us as I stuffed my face and Connie handed over what money SI's shoe-string budget could spare. "Time?" The new Lieutenant hadn't suddenly become an old Lieutenant since I last saw her.

"Not that long. The night of the dawn you left to hunt that creature down."

Good, I hadn't suddenly lost a century to the Never-Never, which was another threat with my handy-dandy transportation. Maybe I should get a new car? "Need help fitting that thing in the back?"

"Appreciated." Connie and I, mostly me because glowing blood was already splattered all over my duster and clothes, heaved the dead body into her truck. At least alien blood looked like a messy arts and crafts project gone wrong. Handing clothes covered with blood to be washed or dry cleaned was always tricky business. People gave you funny looks and bothered the hard-working police with their fickle concerns.

"I'll have the report in the morning," I promised.

"Appreciated Dresden, but god I hope I don't have to work with you again. No offense." We parted ways, her in her truck with a tarp-covered bundle in the back, me to haul my sorry carcass back home. It was, I thought wearily, only one more Way.

Body language is vital when dealing with predators. I might have wanted to fall into the nearest bed—you know you're tired when the blood and guts coated option looks tempting—but looking half dead in the Never-Never was an invitation to complete the process. Despite the weariness dragging my limbs, sinking into my bones, I stepped into the Never-Never with all the energy of Cortez into Aztec Country. Two bears met me as soon as I opened the Way, looked at my face, down at my wrists and looked elsewhere for a meal. A few more predators were drawn by the smell of blood but for some reason didn't appear to be in the mood for a nice, tasty bite of wizard.

Wonder why.

No one greeted me at the river, not even when I dared cross the bridge. I kept looking over my shoulder suspiciously. You're never too tired for paranoia. As soon as I could, I tore through the fantastic and into the realistic, emerging beside a perfectly ordinary Chicago townhouse a block from my own.

In my old neighborhood walking home a bloody mess wasn't the strangest thing people saw, and my neighbors were either too old to nose effectively or had their noses burned before. Sometimes literally. My old place wasn't one to raise a daughter.

These new neighbors might consider sundown bedtime and crime to give out caramel apples on Halloween but they were a lot more likely to gawk at the wizard dripping acid-green blood all over their pretty, well-swept sidewalks. I threw up a crude veil, just barely enough to make me indistinct in the darkness. I had not yet achieved the possible mob-boss enforcer reputation of my former neighborhood and did my best to postpone that day.

"Harry," Molly, who met me at the door with shield and spell at the ready, relaxed. She'd taken Michael's place in baby-sitting duty, being better equipped to vaporize nasty things. "Maggie's in bed."

"You sure it's him?" Murphy sat on the couch, her injuries making it difficult to even stand for long periods of time, but her pistol was pointed unwaveringly toward the door…though not quite at my head.

"I can feel it," Molly tapped the place where winter magic resided.

"Bleed first," Murphy said, "Just in case." She levered herself slowly, grabbed a nearby cane that definitely didn't hide a sword, and hobbled our way to hand me a cold iron needle that Molly flinched from.

I grimaced, and not because of a little prick to the finger or the Winter Mantle's sudden interest in the tiny, wounded human coming our way. Molly's status as Winter Lady and lack of humanity wasn't something I liked being reminded of. DuMorne may have tried to mind-control me and succeeded with Elaine but at least our other stupid choices had been our own. Molly hadn't gotten a choice to be what she was.

Murphy waited, just out of reach, for me to hand the bloodied needle back and gave it a sniff, then a lick, then a satisfied nod.

Neither of them invited me in. They didn't need to. "Thanks. I'll clean up before visiting Maggie." One of the many rules of kids: in bed doesn't mean 'asleep.'

"What was it this time?" Molly asked, looking between the glowing blood and the wrist blades I'd taken off the alien. Connie wanted the carcass, she got the carcass but who could resist genuine alien technology. Molly barely gave the ruin of all her father's hard work a glance before turning back to portable hospital she'd brought.

"An alien."

One eyebrow raised, "Seriously? Were they carrying a lightsaber?"

"If they were you'd know. I wouldn't hold that treasure back."

"It killed Stallings," Murphy said, tone hard. "Did you make sure it would never kill again?"

"Yes," I growled. In a softer, serious tone I added, "Keep an eye out though, if this is an alien we might be dealing with an entire species and at least one of them was an extraterrestrial most dangerous game hunter. It liked a challenge."

Molly had been through enough in life to take such warnings gravely. I hated to see her grow up so fast though. I was still a hot-head at her age. As the Winter Lady, she couldn't afford to be.

"Harry, you asked me thrice-fold to keep Maggie safe." Her eyes burned with rage, more rage than a wizard would feel at being asked such a thing.

"Molly, you can use an I-pad now," I whispered gently.

"Kindle," she corrected.

"Can you touch iron anymore?" I asked.

"I'm still Molly," she said, a little desperately. Grabbing a lock of her hair she stared at it. The tips were dyed a mix of winter colors: ice blue, ice green, ice purple. The rest of it was blond, but already a shade lighter than Charity's.

"Butters noticed I'm more fae-like," I confessed. "My first priority was repaying debts, stuff like that." I picked up one of my knives by the steel blade. Molly jerked back. "And I can still do this. What about you?"

She said nothing.

"You should visit home."

"Mab won't help—" she dropped off, eyes wide.

"To your parents: Michael and Charity," I said gently. "It's possible to cling to your humanity." I thought of the winter mantle, which had just come to attention, always eager for another hunt, more blood, more violence. "But it's the hardest thing in the world."

Maybe I should ask Listens-to-Wind if he's willing to give Molly some anger management lessons too.

She changed the subject. "Your face is as good as it ever gets. Try to keep from tearing it up for a few more days. Goodnight Harry." Her lips brushed mine, feather-light. They felt cold. The winter mantle surged through me, urging me to make a happy ending with the very willing woman—

I leaned away, panting harder than a simple kiss should have evoked. "Goodnight Molly."

She left. Murphy said nothing. I retreated to the basement.

In my lab I dropped off my weapons and everything I'd scavenged from the predator's corpse, one metaphorical hand throttling the winter mantle by its metaphorical scruff. No happy endings tonight. Besides, the battle might be over but I couldn't relax. I'd like to think that hunter was one of a kind; I'd also like to think my daughter would grow up in utopia, but luck didn't run that way.

More hunters would come. Especially if that one never returned. A target capable of killing one of them would either wet their appetites for revenge or a more enticing prey. Against these new enemies I would need another shield focus. More blades. A leather duster without patchwork covering the obvious scorched holes.

SI also needed that report. The details needed to be in ink and paper before they escaped my unreliable mind. Covering everything that happened in the past few days would take several pages too and I'd need to do it all by hand. A fortune a hundred times greater than my own couldn't buy a computer capable of cooperating with a wizard.

Later.

I had something more important to do. Something that couldn't wait until the next sunrise. Silently padding out of my lab, I took a couple turns and carefully squeezed the nearest doorknob, turning it noiselessly. Needn't have bothered, she was awake and waiting for me.

"You came back!" Would the wonder and disbelief ever go away?

"I promised, didn't I?"

 **END**

 **A/N:** Yes, Dresden wins. If a vanilla mortal can at least escape a predator a wizard with the right kind of talents (battle-magic and tracking) can take the hunt to the predator. Hope the revision was better than the first draft and thanks again for all the comments :D


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